As the financial sector crumbles, six-figure stars are increasingly among those getting the pink slips. When Citigroup, for example, announced recently that it was booting some 50,000 employees--many of them high-paid managers--the departing bankers joined more than 20,000 workers the company had already laid off this year. Many of the newly axed at Citi and elsewhere have left behind cushy paychecks that covered their jumbo mortgages and kids' tuition bills. That ominous sound you hear? It's all those $200 pairs of shoes pounding the pavement.

The hiring machine, however, hasn't shut down altogether. The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits...